An interview for Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) and Novinite.bg with Ina Kileva, CEO of Prophon, a Bulgarian music licensing company, regarding the ACTA trade agreement.

Is it true that ACTA will allow the entertainment industry to place all Internet users under the threat of sanctions?

No, it is not. ACTA does not foresee measures or civil legislation ways to protect intellectual properties without a proven violation or a legal procedure in place that can prove such violation. On the contrary, ACTA does not envision anything that is not included our existing mechanisms under the Law on Copyright and Its Neighbouring Rights, as well as the other special laws in that field, when it comes to gathering evidence within legal procedures that prove violation. Most of the legislative principles included in ACTA have been included in Bulgaria's legislation five or more years ago in the process of harmonization with the existing EU legislation. ACTA's aim is to combat a massive illegal activity, often backed by criminal organizations. It does not affect the actions of ordinary consumers in our everyday lives. Internet users can continue sharing non-pirate materials or information in the global network.

It has been said that the agreement can contribute to increasing the economic growth and create jobs, while increasing the security of consumers. How can that happen?

Surveys show that millions of jobs are lost each year because of pirating and counterfeiting in the world, while EUR 1.26 T is to be profited by illegal distribution by 2015. It means that profits are being made not by the real creators of the intellectual product, but by the owners of the illegal platforms for online sharing or trade.

A survey conducted by TERA Research in 2010 on the threats posed by pirating for creative industry jobs shows that 1.2 million jobs will be lost by 2015 if the situation is not changed, mainly in small and medium-sized companies that dominate the creative sector and are the backbone of market economy.

A little more data: the sales of debut albums in the Top 50 segment have dropped by 77% in the period 2003-2010. In 2010 alone, a 12% drop has been registered in profits from concerts. In 2010, the sales of Bulgarian music slumped by 85% with no alternative that could partially compensate this catastrophic drop by legal digital and online sales. There is no chance for the legal business services in a field dominated by pirating.

In 2011, the share of users with paid subscription for the use of legal services was over 65% and the big music companied operate successfully in 58 countries, while in Bulgaria these things do not happen.

The European Union and its business on all levels need appropriate tools with which they can protect their intellectual property rights in the external territories of their market distribution and keep their jobs and competitiveness in this critical moment. The ordinary consumers, on the other hand, also need effective protection, having in mind the rapid development of online trade and the frequent criminal violations that include counterfeited goods and unfair services.

There is no logic in excluding a whole sector of industries and right-owners from the opportunity to place their legal products in a digital medium.

People say it will be the powerful corporations and not the artists that would benefit from ACTA. How would you comment that?

Intellectual property protection is important for artists as well as for those who have made substantial investments in the process of creating a creative product. Piracy undoubtedly robs all who participate in the process of creating an intellectual property product. The truth, however, is cruel: usually, it is the creators of a intellectual product that suffer the most from the pirating of their efforts, since while a big corporation faces the question of how to compensate its investments, then for the ordinary artist it is often a question of survival.

Government officials already stated that the potential ratifying of ACTA in Bulgaria will not change much in its existing legislation. What will it change, though?

Indeed, the ratification of this international agreement will not lead to serious changes in our legislation, since our legislative system possesses all tools that ACTA recommends to be implemented in the national legislations of the countries that ratify it. What all right-owners in Bulgaria hope is that the act of ratification will lead to the creation of a new climate that will bring about a different approach to intellectual property rights.

Under the Bulgarian constitution, ACTA has a primate over Bulgarian laws as it is an international agreement, but it has no direct application. The main debate in Bulgaria does not concern the introduction of new rules but the effective application of the existing ones.

An interview for Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) and Novinite.bg with Ivaylo Dinev, one of the organizers of Saturday's protests in Bulgaria against the ACTA trade afreement, can be read HERE.